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| Curtis Coleman |
The states are arguing that Congress is overstepping its constitutional authority by penalizing people for not doing something — not buying health insurance. Attorneys for the Obama administration argued at a September hearing that the penalties should be considered a tax levied by Congress, as allowed by its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce.
Vinson ruled that the fee imposed on people who fail to comply with the individual mandate amounts to a “penalty” rather than a “tax” and rebuked government attorneys for arguing that the fee was a tax in the response to the lawsuit after congressional supporters had characterized it as a “penalty” during the debate over the health-care law, noting in his decision that the penalties for those who do not buy insurance are never referred to as taxes in the 2,700-page health-care act. “One could reasonably infer that Congress proceeded as it did specifically because it did not want the penalty to be ‘scrutinized’ as a $4 billion annual tax increase,” Vinson wrote. “It seems likely that the members of Congress merely called it a penalty and did not describe it as revenue-generating to try and insulate themselves from the potential electoral ramifications of their votes.”
“Congress should not be permitted to secure and cast politically difficult votes on controversial legislation by deliberately calling something one thing, after which the defenders of that legislation take an ‘Alice-in-Wonderland’ tack and argue in court that Congress really meant something else entirely,” Vinson wrote, “thereby circumventing the safeguard that exists to keep their broad power in check.” Vinson’s ruling would mean that Congress’s ability to impose these penalties cannot derive from its constitutional powers of taxation.
The Obama administration’s argument that Congress can use its Article 1, Section 8 constitutional power to levy taxes to require citizens to purchase health insurance or any product or service is enormously distressing.
The argument that our government can do something that would otherwise be clearly unconstitutional simply because and as long as Congress is taxing it constitutes one of the most treacherous threats to American freedoms and liberties in the history of the Republic.
Consider, for instance, the right to keep and bear arms. If the Obama administration wins this argument, a legal precedent would be established under which the government could levy a tax of say $10,000 per gun kept by any U.S. citizen.Amendment 4 guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” unless, of course, any person has failed to pay a “privacy tax” – a legal possibility if the Administration wins its argument in the health-care act lawsuit.
What future “taxes” might be levied against an establishment of religion, the free exercise thereof, the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances? That our government would even deign such an argument is a heretofore unimaginable mile marker in the distance now traveled from the principles and precepts that guided the Founding Fathers in their crafting of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum praised Vinson’s ruling as “the first step to having the individual mandate declared unconstitutional and upholding state sovereignty in our federal system.” The states involved in the lawsuit Vinson is hearing are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Washington.
In Arkansas, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and Democrat candidate for Lieutenant Governor Shane Broadway have described the lawsuit as “frivolous.” Mark Darr, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, has said that if elected he will file a lawsuit challenging the federal health-care law.
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Curtis Coleman is the President of The Curtis Coleman Institute for Constitutional Policy and contributing author to the ARRA News Service.
Tags: Congress, health care, NFIB, right to keep and bear arms, state sovereignty, taxes, Vinson Arkansas, Constitutional Crisis, Federalism, Government and Business, Health Care Reform, Taxes, Curtis Coleman, Institute for Constitutional Policy To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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